I began assembling notes and information on the mysterious 1804 dollars around 1957. At the time there was very little reliable material in print and it was difficult to separate fact from fiction. Walter Breen was doing some of his best work back then and was a great help in pointing me in the right direction. He had a talent for organizing and sorting through material to arrive at rational conclusions. At the time I was also "picking the brains" of everyone else who I thought could provide background information.

One of the people I interviewed was B. Max Mehl. He handled a couple of sales and seemed like a good background source. We exchanged a few letters, and later when I met him at a coin show he surprised me by remembering my name and all we had written about. Unfortunately his memory for details of the 1804 dollars was not nearly as accurate. He did confess to using an illustration of the Stickney specimen in his catalog of the Manning (Cohen specimen) collection, which cleared up a bit of confusion for me. Work on the book began in earnest around 1960 when I joined forces with Eric P. Newman who had been doing independent research for years on his own.

We also sought help from a bright young writer, Lynn Glaser, and Walter Breen, both of whom had been studying the subject. Together we shared all available information and tried to formulate conclusions. The actual writing of the book was done by Eric Newman and myself after spending countless hours together and sharing reams of material. We felt sure that in the process we had read every piece of published information, and had located many unpublished letters and pieces of the puzzle. When the manuscript and pictures we had accumulated finally went to the printer we felt sure that we had solved the mystery of this intriguing coin and all of its related history. For me it was the finale to a great adventure and time to relax.

The book's scheduled printing coincided with the ANA convention in August of 1962. I could not foresee anything going wrong at that point, so 1 packed my things and took off for the convention with a clear mind. It was a great show, as I recall, with Newman and I rejoicing over having finished the book on schedule. During the show I even took in a talk that had been prepared by David Spink and James Risk, "New facts about an old American coin."

During that talk it was announced that a new specimen of the "original" 1804 dollar had just been discovered! Not only that, but this particular specimen was in its original presentation case and could be traced back to the King of Siam. It was the missing link that we had been seeking for years. The Holy Grail, so to speak, of numismatics. It was absolute proof of our theory about when and why the coins were made in 1834.

I remember running out of the lecture hall directly to a pay telephone to call the publisher and actually yell - "Stop the press!" The final chapter to the book had yet to be written, and there was much new information to be added to the story. The publisher was understanding and did grant us another month or so to finish the project that was done in record time. The first 8,000 of the books were shipped on October 1, 1962.

When the dust had settled, a press foreman asked me what I wanted to do with the sheets that had been printed prior to stopping the press run. I arranged to have a few copies of the unpublished book bound for archives and friends. As I recall, there were about 20 to 24 copies made, and the rest of the sheets were destroyed. Most of the books were later distributed as intended.

Cognoscenti still examine copies of the book hoping to find a first version. I did a census of surviving examples of the first version last year, but regrettably have been too swamped to properly collate and publish the data. That book is rare, one of the rarest American numismatic books of the 20th century, but of course it commands only a modest price on the occasions on which a first version copy comes up for sale.

According to my records and recollection fewer than 50 of the Bound Page Proofs must have been cased-in (bound with covers) for distribution to contributors, friends, and owners of the dollars. I have no record of the people who received them --- just the usual suspects of that time. I think the 36-40 mentioned by Joel is fairly accurate or a tad on the low side. Over the years I may have given away or sold a couple of them.

They were not all distributed at the time. I am pretty sure that Eric was given either six or 12 copies for his use, and I saved a few thinking others would someday want one. Several were used in the editing process of correcting the text based on new information. Remember, there were no computers back then and everything was edited by hand on the printed pages. After the initial surge I packed the leftovers away along with some special copies that were inscribed to me by Eric, and various production stage items.

Aside from those ‘specialty items’, I also have the following five bound copies:

2 autographed by EPN and me
1 autographed by me
3 not autographed

I have two copies of The Fantastic 1804 Dollar book as "first printing/bound page proofs." One copy was obtained from the 6-86 Kolbe sale, lot 475. The lot description includes "one of sixteen copies." It is signed by both authors to Mike Powills. The inscription by Ken Bressett goes "This is a set of bound page proofs made just prior to correction before publication of the book. They were intended only as checking copies and reflect the situation before the discovery of the Siam specimen." The inscription from Eric Newman is "To my friend Mike Powills from his fellow coin enthusiast."

My other bound page proof copy has an inscription signed by both authors and it says "August, 1962. Bound page proofs ready for correction, and correct them we did!"

The corrected version contains information on the Siam Specimen on page 127.

Yes, I have one and it is signed by both authors.

My copy is unique in that mine was autographed by three numismatists ON THE FIRST DAY IT WAS ISSUED (or available).

A shipment of 16 books was sent to Ken Bressett at the ANA convention in Detroit. He received these on August 17, 1962. He gave me a copy and I mentioned I was flying home to Kansas City with an hour between planes in St. Louis. If Eric could meet me at the airport I would deliver his copy to him. He did and I had him sign my copy right under Ken’s inscription. I signed mine when I got home to KC. Three signatures in three cities all on the same day!

But that’s not the end of the story. On May 29, 2011 I had Eric add a second comment and signature on the facing sheet inside the cover.

If Kellen is preparing an article to be published and wishes to have an image of these two pages of inscriptions, I would be glad to send a photocopy to him.

Ken received a box of 16 "first edition" books at the ANA convention in Detroit to distribute there. Another 24 or so were bound in Racine, for a total of about 40 copies of the "first edition" initially extant.